Agent permissions: where platforms pause
Some platforms require approval for selected actions; others offer broad autonomy or workflow checkpoints, so buyers trade speed for control.
The short answer
n8n, GC AI, Letta, OpenClaw, Relevance AI and Glean offer configurable approval or permission controls. Salesforce Agentforce, Cresta, Dify and Botpress offer narrower controls or checkpoints, not a general approval prompt before every action. The key difference is whether the agent pauses before a particular tool call, or runs until a workflow checkpoint or policy boundary.
Which agents do it
- n8n sets review per tool. A workflow pauses for a reviewer to approve or deny through supported chat or email channels; tools without a review step run unattended.
- GC AI separates permissions by action type. Searching an inbox and sending mail can have different grants, with in-chat options to approve once, always approve or deny.
- Letta offers four permission modes, from strict to unrestricted, plus allow and deny patterns for tools and a guard for shared memory between agents.
- OpenClaw lets operators choose among deny, allowlist, ask, auto and full execution modes. Approval prompts can be tied to allowlists, and a missing approval interface defaults to denial.
- Relevance AI sets each connection to Auto Run, Approval Required or Let Agent Decide. The boundary can therefore differ from one tool to another.
- Glean pauses write tools for your approval by default in its web app; an admin and the agent’s builder can let a step run without it. Read work proceeds unattended.
Which do not, or only partly
- Salesforce Agentforce uses guardrails and filters to bound topics and actions, while data access follows existing Salesforce permissions. An approval-before-every-action mode is documented for its Vibes coding agent, not as a general mode.
- Cresta uses escalation policies, compliance boundaries and guardrails; supervisors can steer or take over a live call. It does not publish a per-action approval model.
- Dify can pause a workflow at a Human Input node for review, approval or edits, with a timeout branch. This is a designed checkpoint, not a permission prompt before each tool call.
- Botpress can require human approval before AI output is sent, and an Autonomous Node needs access to variables. It has no approval gate before a tool call executes.
What it means for a buyer
Per-tool approvals give teams a way to let low-risk work proceed while stopping selected actions for review, but someone must handle those prompts. Workflow checkpoints and guardrails can constrain behavior without asking before every action; confirm that their boundary matches the actions your team considers sensitive.
Sources
- n8n n8n.io
- GC AI gc.ai
- Letta letta.com
- OpenClaw openclaw.ai
- Relevance AI relevanceai.com
- Salesforce Agentforce salesforce.com
- Cresta cresta.com
- Dify dify.ai
- Botpress botpress.com
- Glean glean.com
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